Business MotHs at their finest
Local businesses are the heart and soul of our community. You are more than just the goods and services you sell. We share our gossip, local updates, birthdays, school fetes, hatches, matches and dispatches with you. Without you, our communities are nothing.
Mums of the Hills members have been showing their strength at recent local events. First we had the Hills Small Business Expo organised with thanks by the Yarra Ranges Council. Two weeks later the Eastern Dandenong Ranges Business Networking Breakfast provided a second opportunity to meet, connect and discuss business in the region. Both events showcased the variety and strength of business owning mums of the hills. At the latter event, I was given the honor of speaking about Mums of the Hills, the role we’ve played in supporting local small businesses and how we are advocating for making telecommunication legislated as an essential service. These are a few points I made at that event.
Back in 2020 when we first went into lockdowns it was inspiring to see how quickly local businesses adapted to online opportunities. For those already set up this way, the change wasn’t as daunting, some actually capitalised on it big time. For some businesses in the high tourist areas that relied on foot traffic, the learning curve was steep.
Through MotHs I did what I could to promote those businesses while they shifted their business more to the local market starting with the Yarra Ranges Local Business Page. On this online page, 20 volunteers scoured local business Facebook pages sharing any updates they found to the Yarra Ranges Local Business Page. Locals only had to go to the one page rather than searching individual pages. This developed into other resources such as the Local Delivery Guide, Grocery Guide, Fathers Day and Christmas Issu catalogues. All free. Why? Because local businesses are the heart and soul of our community. You are more than just the goods and services you sell. We share our gossip, local updates, birthdays, school fetes, hatches, matches and dispatches with you. Without you, our communities are nothing.
Legislating telecommunications essential is crucial for businesses
I see our MotHs group as a blueprint for isolated and at-risk communities around Australia. As locals, we all know the vulnerabilities of our power and telecommunications infrastructure. Although MotHs is not a business, like businesses our group is relied upon by thousands and so having a strong and reliable telecommunications service is essential.
Despite Yarra Ranges businesses competing with metropolitan Melbourne businesses due to our close proximity, businesses here have restricted ecommerce opportunities due to the poor telecommunications infrastructure in the area. Ranges businesses and professionals struggle with poor upload and download speeds, intermittent internet dropouts and poor mobile coverage. This severely inhibits businesses and professionals working from home. Retailers and businesses with shop fronts in our communities, struggle with mobile and internet connection for simple tasks such EFTPOS transactions, phone orders and customer communications that metropolitan businesses rarely experience.
Unlike metropolitan Melbourne, the Ranges experiences severe weather and other natural disasters. These are expected to increase in frequency and intensity in the future due to climate change. The reputations of our local businesses are being questioned due to the vulnerability of the networks they rely on. Some Ranges area experienced a 71 day wait for NBN to be restored and multiple changes of service restoration dates following severe storms in 2021. Ranges businesses are concerned that without improvements to the telecommunications network, businesses in this region will be unsustainable.
Although our Ranges businesses are highly adaptive, they simply cannot function when there is no built in resiliency and confidence in the telecommunications network. Mums of the Hills will continue to advocate on telecommunications to ensure our businesses remain ‘in the communications loop’, competitive and thriving.